Follow me through my adventures

Review of the new Mass Effect Andromeda cinematic trailer (#2) and thoughts

Day by day we’re getting closer to this game’s release, and as a big fan of the Mass Effect trilogy I just can’t freaking wait anymore! Until now the game looks promising and I’m full of hopes for it to be really good.
I’m going to analyze shot by shot the new cinematic trailer released by the Mass Effect’s official Youtube channel, which you can find here, and try to get out from it the more information I can.

We’re starting off with a shot of the Hyperion flying towards the Arc Nexus over a blue planet, and immediately after another scene where the ship Tempest (I guess) is flying towards another planet, this “Golden World” or Habitat 7, and as we can see in the image below it has all these shiny roots around. I don’t know if it’s something kind of “natural” for this new galaxy and planet, but the view right there is something incredible.

We proceed then with a closer look of the Nexus from the first scene, the voice over reveals us how there is this place where 20’000 people are cryopreserved and waiting to be waken up by the Pathfinders with a new home, thus the principal mission of the main characters. From what the narrator is saying it seems there is a time limit for the Pathfinders to discover a safe new planet and home for them, meaning that if they fail to find one, they’re going to die somewhere, either quickly or slowly by settling down in a dangerous place.
…and cut the next scene! We get to see the ship of what seems to be the bad guy (alien in this case) in this game, and with the big one there are also lots and lots of little ships flying all around it like mosquitos. The design, the colors, the lights, and the skin of this ship are very organic with a feeling of advanced tech all mixed together. If you look close enough you might see three different kind of expressions on this entity. Now begins the real conflict with the unknown.

Shit starts to happen in other words. We see the face of the baddy (Grunt’s distant relative?), we also see who is on our ship with the Rayders and to my pleasure it seems like that the salarian is the pilot of the Tempest (his name is Kallo Jath). There is also the pixie girl (Cora), Donald Glover (I don’t know, but every time I look at Liam it reminds me of him), the female turian (Vetra, yay!), beautiful asari Peebee, and Drack the krogan (I’m so gonna love him I already know, I like krogans too much). It’s gonna be interesting to see their relationships and personalities grow, expand and/or change throughout the game.
Something interesting worth noting is Cora’s surname, Harper, the same one of the Illusive Man, and we’re gonna see if there is any real connection or if it is only a casualty. If they are actually relatives, it’s gonna feel a little bit cliché, and in my opinion that could lead to either Cora turning bad or maybe to her having connections with the notorious Cerberus that could have sponsored this mission with a possibility of gaining something important from it.

We’re introduced then to another world and another species, the angara. Physically they resemble a lot the turian race, and the world kind of looks like other places we’ve already seen in the old Mass Effect games, still I’m waiting to explore this new territory before confirming that.

If you are registered in the Andromeda Initiative, you must have seen the videos with more details they released recently, if not I’m going to explain the important bit for you anyway. I’m mentioning this because after a fast re watch of one of the videos, the one where it’s explained who the original/starter crew is and how the AI SAM operates, connecting directly and feeling exactly what the Pathfinders feel, and something started to settle in my mind. The video shows a short clip of the neural implant which connects with the others, and the image resembles so much the bad looking roots from before, this led me to ask myself: What if there’s a connection between this AI way of working and the bad guy?
Since as we can see in the scene where Archon (yes, fine.. I’m finally calling him by his name) is hanging down from something that looks like it’s connecting him to maybe the ship, maybe his subordinates, maybe something else, I’m beginning to question if they both work in a similar way, or have similar abilities per se. This said, my prediction is that with the implants inside the crew members brains, someone is gonna control them sooner or later.

Action! Bang bang, sarcastic joke “I don’t need an army. I have a krogan.”, smooch bang, fight fight, action! Adventure! Suspense! Explosion! And there we have the Mass Effect Andromeda logo with a beautiful background music to add more emotional context.
The last scene with the explosion inside those black and shiny roots show that it is not going to be a good thing, from the looks of it that stuff is devouring the space little by little, and maybe even planets, which is gonna endanger other species and the future home for humanity. There is still a short clip of Liam telling Rayder that he’s been waiting 600 years for that. The “that” referenced to finding the new home I suppose.

They showed us so much but at the same time it feels so little compared to this new whole galaxy they’re gifting us, and I’m liking where they are going. I’m really curious to try out the new features like scanning and drive around with the makoto through place to place.
I should too put an end to this post now, I salute you. Cue the dramatic music!